Olympus Mons (15 page)

His dark eyes hooded, Vic looked wary wiping the suds from his Viva Zapata mustachio with the back of his hand. He plopped down his stein hard enough to do additional damage to Art's chipped glass table, and rattled off a defamatory blast, half in American, a quarter in Spanish, not forgetting to tweak me, and the other quarter in a mishmash I won't try to pin down. I caught a word here, a word there:
Alemann!
erupted like an explosive grunt, and “half-assed dickhead” was the politest of the short-bitten slurs he laid on our esteemed director, in addition to another choice phrase in the bee-ooti-ful Spanish language.

By the time he wore down, Jesperson was beaming. “Don't fight it, Vic,” he soothed. Lofting his stein, he clicked his boot heels Prussian style.
“Der Führer,
a former academic and first-water, dyed-in-the-wool intellectual, is not to be blamed. Until volunteering to become a Marsrat, not
once
in his whole life did he have to deal with a serious, real-world problem, or mingle with the unwashed masses. Director Walther Scheiermann will do whatever he sincerely believes is best, even if it kills every last one of us.”

***

Vic frowned into his beer and lifted the stein. Sipping slowly, staring at Jesperson over the rim, his coal-black eyes alight with no-nonsense fire, he said in a much mellower tone of voice. “You could be right, and that scares me. In my time I've learned to rely on my bullshit sniffer, and the faint stench of ordure rising from the council strikes me as the first putrid whiff of a disaster that applies directly to me, both of you, and all the others, be they
peones
or
padrones
. Before I do something I've pledged on my mother's grave never to so much as consider doing, I need an extremely serious answer to an exceedingly serious question.”

His usual flippant, unimpressed self, my partner said, “Ask quick, before it escapes.”

“Friend Jesperson,” said Vic, “despite your breezy manner and careless way with words you come across as a sober, serious-minded individual harboring only good intentions. What I truly and desperately have a need to know is whether this thing you advocate so strongly, this thing of the volcano is . . . Well, simply put, I very strongly wish to know if it can be done.”

Jesperson drained his stein, set it down extra-gently on Art's battered glass table, and pushed it aside, all the while returning Vic's unblinking stare with compound unblinking interest.“The climb . . ?”

“Si,
the climb. Is it doable in this, the real world, or is it not? I really must know.”

His slow smile humorless, Jesperson nodded once. “You ask the right question the wrong way, Vic. You should have asked if it
has
to be done.”

Vic's grimaced irritably. “As you wish. Does it have to be done?”

“Definitely, without question, it irrevocably
has
to be done.”

“Or else . . ?”

A second, much more brusque affirmative nod was Jesperson's only response.

Aguilar drew back, looking put-upon. He gritted his teeth. “Your answer,” he accused, “answers nothing.”

“For that I sincerely apologize. To repeat what I told the council, as of this hour, right now, today, it cannot be done although it definitely, absolutely and without question
must
be done. I realize that sounds like double-talk, and again I apologize for providing the only honest answer I'm able to give you.”

Aguilar stayed locked eyeball-to-eyeball with Jesperson, trying to stare him down. He didn't succeed. “Very well, I . . . perhaps understand where you're coming from,” he said slowly, unsurely. “Yet the worrisome ‘facts' that mealy-mouthed fellow Franklin laid before us are
—
”

“
—
unfortunately true in all essential details,” supplied Jesperson, lifting his hands in a palms-up helpless gesture. “Being forced to say Franklin told it exactly like it is pains me deeply, Vic. Unfortunately, that's exactly what he did. Don't think of him as ‘mealy-mouthed,' either. By his own lights, he was being straightforward and aboveboard. I respect his intelligence and depth of knowledge. I just don't happen to
like
the son of a bitch.”

Vic didn't respond. He sat back and sipped suds, his face a mask that concealed whatever submerged suspicions he might have been feeling.

Jesperson rested his elbows on the table and pinned Aguilar in his rock-steady, eyeball-to-eyeball gaze. “The bare bones gist of it is that Big Oly's caldera pokes into the sky roughly twenty-two kilometers, but that doesn't make a whit of difference, and wouldn't if the volcano were five times that high, ten times as rugged and difficult and dangerous to climb. We do
not
have to get anywhere within distant sight of the summit. Somehow, by some means, we have to dig down deep within ourselves and invent a sane, reasonable method of getting a sufficient number of men and quantities of supplies to somewhere between the escarpment's brow and the base of the manifold outfall, and take care of business.”

Aguilar pursed his lips in a silent whistle. “The ‘or else' you refuse to mention, is it as one might say a finale cast in concrete?”

“Yes,” my partner said without hesitation. “Unless something changes, or we manage to change it, that's a given.”

Aguilar drained the dregs in his stein, set it down and swung to face me, a serious glint in his oh-so-serious dark eyes. “Barnes, you are someone I've come to know and respect and trust. We play our little game, joking around with Spanish terms, but the occasion for that is . . . well, another time, eh? You and our mutual friend here have worked together at your assigned tasks for some time now. I hope and pray he will not be offended if I ask you directly, in his presence, a very sincere,
very
serious question.”

“Shoot,” I told him.

“Does Jesperson know what the fuck he's talking about?”

While not exactly embarrassed, I was a whole lot more than just overly irritated. “Heavy load of shit to dump on me, Vic!”

“No me chingas,
Barnes! I have a desperate need to obtain a
very
serious answer to my very serious question.”

It was a side of Vic I hadn't seen before: deadly serious, or maybe plain deadly.

“Does Jesperson know what he's talking about,” he asked in a slightly a more civil tone, “or is this tale he tells taller than his blessed pet volcano?” As I said, the question was repeated more calmly, if every bit as bluntly, but in a different way.

I couldn't stop myself from cutting a quick glance at Jess. He was wearing his go-to-hell, tell him whatever you damn well please leer, and that helped me make up my mind. Torqued and temperish over the way Aguilar had come on to me, I said, “Your question is straightforward and serious, Vic. But I can't come up with a straightforward, serious answer. Most of the technical stuff Jesperson spouts goes as far over my head as his motherhumping pet volcano, but my answer isn't what you're really after, is it, Vic? You want to know my personal take on Jesperson himself. You're looking for an upcheck or downcheck on my work-partner, not whether I think climbing Big Oly to do a fix can be done, or if it's all that'll keep every one of us from going tits-up. All I can tell you honestly and sincerely is that I'm not smart enough to know whether trying to climb that humongous rockpile and do an aqueduct fix is doable, but I won't shy away from telling you what I
am
smart enough to believe.”

Vic subjected me to a series of blinks,
his way of egging me on.

“Repeat, I haven't a clue whether it
can
be done, or is doable. What I do know for certain
—
hear me, Vic, for
certain?
—
is that Jesperson's scheme, and whatever other craziness he ends up drawing up in the final blueprint, will damn sure beat whatever anyone else touts as an answer to our water worries. I'm also damn certain his scheme is the only thing now standing, or for that matter
will
stand, between us and . . . Croatoan. If I didn't believe that heart ‘n soul, I wouldn't be wearing out my overboots foot-slog-sloggin' up ‘n down the miserable ringwall trail to get in shape for whatever scratching, clawing, hustling, lying, cheating, stealing and conniving it'll take to make it all come true. There, that do it for you, Vic?”

Aguilar's blinking had slowed, and stopped. “You have an odd way of saying your say, but make it clear that you yourself believe the truth of what you do say.” He paused, forehead creased in thought, and sighed. “Whether or not you two know it, behind your backs the Marsrats have taken to calling you The Dynamic Duo.”

Jesperson chuckled. “Ah, fame at last!” In his view, nothing's too sacred for amusement. The salty SOB wouldn't think twice about poking fun at the Second Coming.

“Care to make it a Dynamic Trio?” asked Aguilar, his manner casual.

Jesperson chuckled again, except this time his amusement was accompanied by a wry twist of his lips. “Do listen,” he said, dramatically cupping a hand behind his ear, “to the listless applause of one hand clapping. Barney, didn't I tell you Vic might be our first convert?”

The enclave's communications maven relaxed and lifted his stein. Having committed himself, I could almost see a weight slip from his shoulders. “Another round, eh? We'll drink to success and then,
con permiso,
Jesperson, we'll tuck in over at your place. There is something I must show you gentlemen in private.” Swinging around in the chair, stein in hand, he was preparing to call to Art the Barkeep for three more brews.

Just then one of the beasts of burden from the labor pool where I now and then do my workaday thing
—
a less than thoughty specimen named Joe
—
eased closer to our table, most likely thinking to eavesdrop on our conversation. Joe's smarter than any of Art's beat-up glass tables or chairs, but not by a huge margin.

A tad unsteady on his feet due to an overload of brew, Joe sort of swayed back and forth between us and the bar, scowling at Jesperson. “Well, damn my eyes,” he said, “if it ain't the champeen mountain man and his kissy-ass buddies. You talk the talk real good, Mister, uh, Jaspersun. Except when it comes to walkin' the walk up yonder volcano you can't seem t'getchur overboots off the ground. Tell you what: after you top off on Big Oly, we're gonna scout around, see if we can find you a
bigger
volcano to climb. How'd that suit ya?”

Kindness personified, Jesperson smiled warmly, and let Joe live.

***

The two-room bachelor digs where my partner makes what passes for his home still looked like a major sandstorm had blown through it. Rumpled clothes and recharging batteries were strewn around, and the bloated figure of his pressure-suit still lounged beside the divan. What Jess needed was a full-time maid. He'd play hell finding one in Burroughs.

My hunch about why Vic had invited us to a get-together was quickly confirmed. After kicking aside a few items of debris to make us feel welcome, Jesperson went straight to the computer alcove that's in every domicile. Energizing the Burroughs network, he stepped back, waiting for Aguilar to sit down. Vic remained standing extra-close to the display, refrained from using normal voice commands and pulled out the rarely used keyboard. Hiding the goings-on with his broad back, he tapped his encrypted access code, logged in and stepped aside.

Motioning us forward, he said, “If the encrypted alphanumeric access or password are goofed on the first try by me or anyone else, the data gets wiped into hyperspace, where only an act of God or a unanimous council vote can retrieve it. Read the text Scheiermann had me send to Geneva, and weep.”

We read it, and wept.

***

Burroughs Xmittal #4625 MOST URGENT, EYES ONLY KORASEK

 

TO: Hon. A. G. Korasek, Director, UNETAFDEP

FROM: Dr. W. Scheiermann, Director, Burroughs Enclave.

Subject: Olympus Mons Aqueduct, Irreparable Damage To.

 

As stated in previous reports #4620 thru #4624, recent volcanic eruption & collateral seismic event(s) damaged/blocked/terminated subject aqueduct water flow. Lives all Burroughs personnel thereby critically endangered. Immediate, ultimate & of grave concern is abrupt cessation of indispensable water flow formerly supplied by sole source Olympus Mons Aqueduct System.

Unfortunately, enormity/tremendous span/altitude & inaccessible terrain underlying aqueduct right-of-way, etc. afford zero probability/possibility ascertaining type/extent sustained damage/potential blockage/magnitude of destruction & effecting repair(s). Optical survey pipeline vertical descent of six-km-high escarpment surrounding volcano base verifies integrity that segment plus trans-Tharsis pipe string. Added telescopic survey(s) at distance define intermittent visible portions upper pipeline as visibly intact.

Areographer W. G. Franklin estimates locale/nature & extent damage/cause of cease in water flow by infers break/stoppage somewhere tween escarpment crest & manifold outfall. Desperate need for orbital surveillance. Request hi-res pix/infrared scans/ground-penetrating radar scans volcano's southeasterly slopes/flanks. Data readily obtainable via inbound vehicle's scheduled arrival circum-Mars & insertion parking orbit to transship passengers to ground. Obtaining data on orbital passes vital if sun angle/clarity Martian atmosphere not prohibitive.

Plea for immediate assistance not to be taken lightly. Burroughs situation extremely, repeat extremely grave. Barring unforeseen usage need, water held in reservoirs as of this xmittal should sustain current personnel, plus sixteen arriving immigrants five E-months. Rapid U.N. Relief action absolutely essential.